Zane Grey (20 page)

Like a panther he leaped at her, fastened a powerful hand at the neck of
her blouse, jerked her to her knees, and began to drag her. Joan fought
his iron grasp. The twisting and tightening of her blouse choked her
utterance. He did not look down upon her, but she could see him, the
rigidity of his body set in violence, the awful shade upon his face, the
upstanding hair on his head. He dragged her as if she had been an empty
sack. Like a beast he was seeking a dark place—a hole to hide her.
She was strangling; a distorted sight made objects dim; and now she
struggled instinctively. Suddenly the clutch at her neck loosened;
gaspingly came the intake of air to her lungs; the dark-red veil left
her eyes. She was still upon her knees. Cleve stood before her, like a
gray-faced demon, holding his gun level, ready to fire.

"Pray for your soul—and mine!"

"Jim! Oh Jim!... Will you kill yourself, too?"

"Yes! But pray, girl—quick!"

"Then I pray to God—not for my soul—but just for one more moment of
life... TO TELL YOU, JIM!"

Cleve's face worked and the gun began to waver. Her reply had been a
stroke of lightning into the dark abyss of his jealous agony.

Joan saw it, and she raised her quivering face, and she held up her arms
to him. "To tell—you—Jim!" she entreated.

"What?" he rasped out.

"That I'm innocent—that I'm as good—a girl—as ever.. ever.... Let me
tell you.... Oh, you're mistaken—terribly mistaken."

"Now, I know I'm drunk.... You, Joan Randle! You in that rig! You
the companion of Jack Kells! Not even his wife! The jest of these
foul-mouthed bandits! And you say you're innocent—good?... When you
refused to leave him!"

"I was afraid to go—afraid you'd be killed," she moaned, beating her
breast.

It must have seemed madness to him, a monstrous nightmare, a delirium of
drink, that Joan Randle was there on her knees in a brazen male attire,
lifting her arms to him, beseeching him, not to spare her life, but to
believe in her innocence.

Joan burst into swift, broken utterance: "Only listen! I trailed you
out—twenty miles from Hoadley. I met Roberts. He came with me. He lamed
his horse—we had to camp. Kells rode down on us. He had two men. They
camped there. Next morning he—killed Roberts—made off with me.... Then
he killed his men—just to have me—alone to himself.... We crossed a
range—camped in the canon. There he attacked me—and I—I shot him!...
But I couldn't leave him—to die!" Joan hurried on with her narrative,
gaining strength and eloquence as she saw the weakening of Cleve. "First
he said I was his wife to fool that Gulden—and the others," she went
on. "He meant to save me from them. But they guessed or found out....
Kells forced me into these bandit clothes. He's depraved, somehow. And
I had to wear something. Kells hasn't harmed me—no one has. I've
influence over him. He can't resist it. He's tried to force me to marry
him. And he's tried to give up to his evil intentions. But he can't.
There's good in him. I can make him feel it.... Oh, he loves me, and I'm
not afraid of him any more.... It has been a terrible time for me, Jim,
but I'm still—the same girl you knew—you used to—"

Cleve dropped the gun and he waved his hand before his eyes as if to
dispel a blindness.

"But why—why?" he asked, incredulously. "Why did you leave Hoadley?
That's forbidden. You knew the risk."

Joan gazed steadily up at him, to see the whiteness slowly fade out of
his face. She had imagined it would be an overcoming of pride to
betray her love, but she had been wrong. The moment was so full, so
overpowering, that she seemed dumb. He had ruined himself for her, and
out of that ruin had come the glory of her love. Perhaps it was all too
late, but at least he would know that for love of him she had in turn
sacrificed herself.

"Jim," she whispered, and with the first word of that betrayal a thrill,
a tremble, a rush went over her, and all her blood seemed hot at her
neck and face, "that night when you kissed me I was furious. But the
moment you had gone I repented. I must have—cared for you then, but I
didn't know.... Remorse seized me. And I set out on your trail to save
you from yourself. And with the pain and fear and terror there was
sometimes—the—the sweetness of your kisses. Then I knew I cared....
And with the added days of suspense and agony—all that told me of your
throwing your life away—there came love.... Such love as otherwise I'd
never have been big enough for! I meant to find you—to save you—to
send you home!... I have found you, maybe too late to save your life,
but not your soul, thank God!... That's why I've been strong enough to
hold back Kells. I love you, Jim!... I love you! I couldn't tell you
enough. My heart is bursting.... Say you believe me! Say you know I'm
good—true to you—your Joan!... And kiss me—like you did that night
when we were such blind fools. A boy and a girl who didn't know—and
couldn't tell!—Oh, the sadness of it!.... Kiss me, Jim, before
I—drop—at your feet!... If only you—believe—"

Joan was blinded by tears and whispering she knew not what when
Cleve broke from his trance and caught her to his breast. She was
fainting—hovering at the border of unconsciousness when his violence
held her back from oblivion. She seemed wrapped to him and held so
tightly there was no breath in her body, no motion, no stir of
pulse. That vague, dreamy moment passed. She heard his husky, broken
accents—she felt the pound of his heart against her breast. And he
began to kiss her as she had begged him to. She quickened to thrilling,
revivifying life. And she lifted her face, and clung round his neck, and
kissed him, blindly, sweetly, passionately, with all her heart and soul
in her lips, wanting only one thing in the world—to give that which she
had denied him.

"Joan!... Joan!... Joan!" he murmured when their lips parted. "Am I
dreaming—drunk—or crazy?"

"Oh, Jim, I'm real—you have me in your arms," she whispered. "Dear
Jim—kiss me again—and say you believe me."

"Believe you?... I'm out of my mind with joy.... You loved me! You
followed me!... And—that idea of mine—only an absurd, vile suspicion!
I might have known—had I been sane!"

"There.... Oh, Jim!... Enough of madness. We've got to plan. Remember
where we are. There's Kells, and this terrible situation to meet!"

He stared at her, slowly realizing, and then it was his turn to shake.
"My God! I'd forgotten. I'll HAVE to kill you now!"

A reaction set in. If he had any self-control left he lost it, and like
a boy whose fling into manhood had exhausted his courage he sank beside
her and buried his face against her. And he cried in a low, tense,
heartbroken way. For Joan it was terrible to hear him. She held his hand
to her breast and implored him not to weaken now. But he was stricken
with remorse—he had run off like a coward, he had brought her to this
calamity—and he could not rise under it. Joan realized that he had long
labored under stress of morbid emotion. Only a supreme effort could lift
him out of it to strong and reasoning equilibrium, and that must come
from her.

She pushed him away from her, and held him back where he must see her,
and white-hot with passionate purpose, she kissed him. "Jim Cleve, if
you've NERVE enough to be BAD you've nerve enough to save the girl who
LOVES you—who BELONGS to you!"

He raised his face and it flashed from red to white. He caught the
subtlety of her antithesis. With the very two words which had driven him
away under the sting of cowardice she uplifted him; and with all that
was tender and faithful and passionate in her meaning of surrender she
settled at once and forever the doubt of his manhood. He arose trembling
in every limb. Like a dog he shook himself. His breast heaved. The
shades of scorn and bitterness and abandon might never have haunted his
face. In that moment he had passed from the reckless and wild, sick rage
of a weakling to the stern, realizing courage of a man. His suffering
on this wild border had developed a different fiber of character; and at
the great moment, the climax, when his moral force hung balanced
between elevation and destruction, the woman had called to him, and her
unquenchable spirit passed into him.

"There's only one thing—to get away," he said.

"Yes, but that's a terrible risk," she replied.

"We've a good chance now. I'll get horses. We can slip away while
they're all excited."

"No—no. I daren't risk so much. Kells would find out at once. He'd be
like a hound on our trail. But that's not all. I've a horror of Gulden.
I can't explain. I FEEL it. He would know—he would take the trail. I'd
never try to escape with Gulden in camp.... Jim, do you know what he's
done?"

"He's a cannibal. I hate the sight of him. I tried to kill him. I wish I
had killed him."

"I'm never safe while he's near."

"Then I will kill him."

"Hush! you'll not be desperate unless you have to be.... Listen. I'm
safe with Kells for the present. And he's friendly to you. Let us wait.
I'll keep trying to influence him. I have won the friendship of some of
his men. We'll stay with him—travel with him. Surely we'd have a better
chance to excape after we reach that gold-camp. You must play your part.
But do it without drinking and fighting. I couldn't bear that. We'll see
each other somehow. We'll plan. Then we'll take the first chance to get
away."

"We might never have a better chance than we've got right now," he
remonstrated.

"It may seem so to you. But I KNOW. I haven't watched these ruffians for
nothing. I tell you Gulden has split with Kells because of me. I don't
know how I know. And I think I'd die of terror out on the trail with two
hundred miles to go—and that gorilla after me."

"But, Joan, if we once got away Gulden would never take you alive," said
Jim, earnestly. "So you needn't fear that."

"I've uncanny horror of him. It's as if he were a gorilla—and would
take me off even if I were dead!... No, Jim, let us wait. Let me select
the time. I can do it. Trust me. Oh, Jim, now that I've saved you
from being a bandit, I can do anything. I can fool Kells or Pearce or
Wood—any of them, except Gulden."

"If Kells had to choose now between trailing you and rushing for the
gold-camp, which would he do?"

"He'd trail me," she said.

"But Kells is crazy over gold. He has two passions. To steal gold, and
to gamble with it."

"That may be. But he'd go after me first. So would Gulden. We can't ride
these hills as they do. We don't know the trails—the water. We'd get
lost. We'd be caught. And somehow I know that Gulden and his gang would
find us first."

"You're probably right, Joan," replied Cleve. "But you condemn me to a
living death.... To let you out of my sight with Kells or any of them!
It'll be worse almost than my life was before."

"But, Jim, I'll be safe," she entreated. "It's the better choice of two
evils. Our lives depend on reason, waiting, planning. And, Jim, I want
to live for you."

"My brave darling, to hear you say that!" he exclaimed, with deep
emotion. "When I never expected to see you again!... But the past is
past. I begin over from this hour. I'll be what you want—do what you
want."

Joan seemed irresistibly drawn to him again, and the supplication, as
she lifted her blushing face, and the yielding, were perilously sweet.

"Jim, kiss me and hold me—the way—you did that night!"

And it was not Joan who first broke that embrace.

"Find my mask," she said.

Cleve picked up his gun and presently the piece of black felt. He held
it as if it were a deadly thing.

"Put it on me."

He slipped the cord over her head and adjusted the mask so the holes
came right for her eyes.

"Joan, it hides the—the GOODNESS of you," he cried. "No one can see
your eyes now. No one will look at your face. That rig shows your—shows
you off so! It's not decent.... But, O Lord! I'm bound to confess how
pretty, how devilish, how seductive you are! And I hate it."

"Jim, I hate it, too. But we must stand it. Try not to shame me any
more.... And now good-by. Keep watch for me—as I will for you—all the
time."

Joan broke from him and glided out of the grove, away under the
straggling pines, along the slope. She came upon her horse and she led
him back to the corral. Many of the horses had strayed. There was no one
at the cabin, but she saw men striding up the slope, Kells in the lead.
She had been fortunate. Her absence could hardly have been noted. She
had just strength left to get to her room, where she fell upon the bed,
weak and trembling and dizzy and unutterably grateful at her deliverance
from the hateful, unbearable falsity of her situation.

It was afternoon before Joan could trust herself sufficiently to go out
again, and when she did she saw that she attracted very little attention
from the bandits.

Kells had a springy step, a bright eye, a lifted head, and he seemed to
be listening. Perhaps he was—to the music of his sordid dreams.
Joan watched him sometimes with wonder. Even a bandit—plotting gold
robberies, with violence and blood merely means to an end—built castles
in the air and lived with joy!

All that afternoon the bandits left camp in twos and threes, each party
with pack burros and horses, packed as Joan had not seen them before on
the border. Shovels and picks and old sieves and pans, these swinging or
tied in prominent places, were evidence that the bandits meant to assume
the characters of miners and prospectors. They whistled and sang. It was
a lark. The excitement had subsided and the action begun. Only in Kells,
under his radiance, could be felt the dark and sinister plot. He was the
heart of the machine.

By sundown Kells, Pearce, Wood, Jim Cleve, and a robust, grizzled
bandit, Jesse Smith, were left in camp. Smith was lame from his ride,
and Joan gathered that Kells would have left camp but for the fact that
Smith needed rest. He and Kells were together all the time, talking
endlessly. Joan heard them argue a disputed point—would the men abide
by Kells's plan and go by twos and threes into the gold-camp, and hide
their relations as a larger band? Kells contended they would and Smith
had his doubts.